With the Tide
by loganes
Summary: If he had ever learned anything of worth, it was to never look back, and despite the fact that he carried his past like an emblem on his shoulder, at least he was forever moving forward. "I'm here to settle a debt." Itachi/Sasuke


**A/N:** Largely introspective, of course. Hints of Itachi/Sasuke if you choose to squint. Otherwise…just a tale of two brothers. Reviews are always welcome.

* * *

**With the Tide**

* * *

His only waking thought was _hunger_. He hadn't eaten for days and he'd known this would happen, but hadn't expected to feel the stabbing emptiness so soon, so harsh as it battled with the rest of his lean body. That his deficit of sustenance should be the first thing on his mind…he was worse off than he'd previously considered, and in the back of his mind, he realized it was troubling that his entire being was so utterly absorbed with his purpose that survival took second place. He wasn't sure, exactly, how to remedy this. He'd been consumed by one goal, one desire for as long as he cared to remember and was no longer able to live any other way; in a sense, it was his only nourishment, the reason for his very existence.

Uchiha Sasuke dropped lithely from the tree he'd slept in, eyeing the branches with distaste as he twisted to stretch his sore back. Cool, wet fog drifted around him, pressing into his vision as if to blind him—to be expected, so near to Kirigakure's border. Fingering the kunai he'd slept with in his hand, Sasuke ignored the piercing pain of his stomach acid eating at and tearing the lining, which was causing him more discomfort than any healthy organ ought to.

Food. He needed food.

Unbidden and unwanted, fantastical thoughts of feasts and tables dripping with various meats and warm dishes and decadent desserts flooded his mind and taunted his angry stomach, prodding at it with breadsticks that were knives and sauces that were poisons. Before he salivated like a common dog, Sasuke focused every ounce of his attention on a dew-spattered leaf resting on the damp grass at his feet and cleared his mind, taking deep, heavy breaths of clammy gray air that coated his lungs unpleasantly. _Mist_.

Lucky for him he'd stopped to rest so close to the village. Lucky. Really, luck had nothing to do with it; if nothing else, Sasuke was prepared. He planned and executed, and thus nothing caught him by surprise. By skill and intelligence, he'd been able to design his world around him and control it as he pleased. This starvation, well, it was an unfortunate variable that he'd overlooked, but he'd be crossing over Mist's borders soon enough and it was not nearly debilitating enough that he'd be incapable of stealth or combat. Thankfully, his insides were past the point of making any perturbed, bodily noises, so he didn't have to worry about masking that.

After an entire night not much more than a mile from Mist's border, though, Sasuke was a little rattled that there had been not one disturbance; either Mist's security force was seriously, ignorantly daft (highly unlikely) or they'd known he was there and were watching and waiting for some opportunity he knew not of (more likely). There was also the chance that he'd gone undetected merely because of his talent for remaining unseen and unheard even in the most dire circumstances, but Sasuke found this improbable. Mist was a strong enough village and border defense there had always, if he was remembering correctly, been top-notch.

Glancing hastily around him in all directions—including above him—Sasuke muttered the genjutsu under his breath almost inaudibly as he made the seals. Possibly, _possibly_ he was far enough away from the border that his presence had not yet been discovered, and then it was only a matter of time before Mist's nin stumbled across him. Better to be primed for his imminent exposure in any case. Sasuke now appeared to be a nondescript-looking boy of fifteen, tattered clothes and all. The hungry expression on his face would probably help him out, he noted with a thin smile that did not reach his eyes and faded as fast as it had arisen.

Concealing his kunai in a loose pocket, Sasuke placed a hand to his forehead, making sure his hitai-ate was in fact gone. A handy genjutsu, it was, one that Naruto had helped him perfect. _Naruto_. Sasuke scoffed, shutting his eyes and placing a hand against the trunk of a tree to steady himself against the onslaught of nostalgia that threatened the stability of the disregarded emotions he'd almost forgot he carried. The name was like a punch, the kind that left a bruise against the jaw but didn't knock one unconscious, and absentmindedly, Sasuke brushed his cold fingers over his own jaw as though feeling for an old, forgotten injury, one that could have been from another time, another world. Then he clenched his teeth, determined to forget once more. Such memories had no place with him, not now, not ever again, and he drove them out like pulling a deeply-embedded arrow from the skin; not without pain and a bit of blood as the skin tore, but a wound that would heal and leave not but a scar, nonetheless.

The day had an odd, eerie brightness to it. Still early in the morning, Sasuke could not have told east from west had he not known the direction of Mist, for the absence of any sun, hidden behind clouds or otherwise, was unnerving and gave the atmosphere a mocking gray tint through the haze that made him squint and want to run in the other direction, enveloped as he was in the steam-like vapor that seemed to strangle him and veil his surroundings from any lucid vision. He could not see further than twenty feet around him. But Sasuke was used to any and all conditions, and this would not hinder him in the slightest; if anything, it would be of aid to his camouflage once he neared the border, for although the Mist nin were native to the land and the weather, Sasuke had spent years making sure that he was the strongest, fastest, and most skilled of any ninja, and thus far, this had never been contested. Confidence in his own abilities had helped him rather than thwarted him, and as far as he was concerned, he had a right to his arrogance.

And so Sasuke ran, light and swift as a deer but altogether more agile and attentive, his vigilance never lessening as he closed in on the border. He spotted a high wall twenty feet off topped with barbed wire and for a moment, he had trouble swallowing… _so close, I can almost taste it, taste _you… A glee equivalent, in too many ways, to insanity flickered across his obsidian (and sometimes red) eyes, but it was gone in a second and of course, no one could see it, see what he harbored so deep within his soul and so close to his indifferent heart.

Distractedly, the Uchiha's left hand drifted to his pocket, to make sure that that small, easily lost kunai was still there, within reach. At least within his line of sight and sense, he perceived no one in the vicinity, but, as with all of man, his perception was inherently flawed (although better and more accurate than most) and so he did not trust it. His alertness never wavered for a moment as he approached the wall; in his peripheral he noted a gate with two sentries. _Only a matter of time…_

"You there!" one of the guards shouted at him in a rough voice. Sasuke marked it to be the one nearer to him, and he stood motionless as the armed shinobi darted toward him, quicker than Sasuke would have originally guessed from his build and stature, but unsurprising—logically, any nin designated to guard a village would be more than able in every aspect. "On your knees, hands behind your head or I will attack," the guard said, a couple of feet away. Then he stopped just short of Sasuke, who complied without question to the sentry's demands. On his face, Sasuke plastered a frightened, humble expression, one so foreign to him that for a moment, he wasn't sure if his facial muscles would comply. Dryly, he observed to himself that this was, on the whole, easier than forcing his way into a village; if it worked, he would not even have to deal with being tracked and hunted once he was inside. And there was no reason for it not to work, as this was the most difficult part, and once the nin in front of him was able to verify his story, he would be in without hassle.

"Now," continued the guard, eyeing Sasuke with distaste and vague but apparent annoyance—a legitimate threat might have warranted some attention, but here he was, to all eyes a thin, incapable-looking boy that was creating an unnecessary disturbance to their watch. "What exactly is your purpose here? From where do you come?"

"I," started Sasuke, his voice hoarse from lack of use, and he cleared his throat. "I ran away from home some time ago. From here," he said, looking up at the ninja above him innocently. "My uncle didn't want to alert the village to my absence because he knew he'd be in trouble for not watching me closely enough, I suspect. But I miss him. I wanted to come home."

Sasuke thought he was putting on a pretty good performance despite the guard's dubious look, but somehow, the words hit somewhere inside him and he blinked, once, determined not to outwardly convey his sudden and immense discomfort. It passed just as quickly as it had come on, but it was like the darkness, the shadowed reality that was his life and it never failed to quench the light from his soul and spread the small amount of fear he still harbored (_could never get rid of_) like salt water in a wound; it soaked him through to the bone and he in no way could fully dry himself from the sheer intensity of its violent flow.

"Your uncle, hm?" The Mist shinobi glanced back at his companion, then again to Sasuke, whose wrists he'd bound with metal cuffs that slowly drained his chakra; of course, Sasuke had masked the extent of his own chakra, as otherwise he would have been taken hostage immediately and without question. "His name?" Sasuke eyed the teeth, so sharp, like another shinobi he knew of and had battled.

"Nigato. Nigato Habute."

The guard yanked Sasuke to his feet and unceremoniously shoved him toward the other sentry who still stood unmoving by the gate. As Sasuke stumbled briefly, he found himself praying to whatever omnipotent being there was—or wasn't—that this man who he'd never actually met would cover for him well enough. Certainly, they'd had a brief correspondence several weeks before, but it was never detailed, and the contact had been supplied to him (supplied was a bit of an understatement, but it didn't seem that important) by, of all people, Haruno Sakura, who had apparently healed the man of a fatal illness at one point and who still owed her for it. This time, at the thought of her name and all that came with it, he was prepared, and his past never had a chance to infiltrate his thoughts as he steeled himself and fixated on a drowsy fly that had landed on the guard's shoulder. Resisting the urge to fling his kunai at the insect (he knew he'd hit it, dead center), he allowed himself an inner smirk. Ironic how it was Sakura who had been the most help. He should have known she'd have been genuinely useful in the end, her undying loyalty a clear indication of her efficacy.

"And your name?"

"Yabito."

The two Mist shinobi communicated silently; the one who'd been with Sasuke shrugged, and then the other darted through the gate, shutting it behind him as he ran into the village, most likely to fetch this Habute Nigato that was supposedly his conveniently civilian uncle and validate Sasuke's story as the truth. In itself, truth was an ambiguous term, so easily applied to lies of all weight and depth that it had long since ceased to encompass any meaning for Sasuke.

Before much time had passed, the Mist nin reappeared, followed closely by a drab man whose overall unexceptional appearance heightened the visual similarities between he and Sasuke.

"This your nephew?" the guard grunted, once more thrusting Sasuke forward. He fought the compulsion to glare and curse at this overly rude shinobi who had absolutely no right to jostle _him_, and held his tongue and his expression as he eyed his "uncle". He needn't have worried; before the guard had even spoken, the man's face had broken into a relieved smile and before either sentry could react, Habute's arms were around Sasuke, who made sure his own face displayed the appropriate emotions.

"Yes, _yes_… Oh, my boy," Habute exclaimed. Sasuke made a note to pay this man. This was all too easy, something that in the past he'd learned to doubt; nothing was ever easy, not for shinobi, the definition of which automatically connoted a life of hardship and constant caution. Therefore, Sasuke remained on edge, despite the fact that all was proceeding according to plan and, necessarily, he had no reason to worry; rather, the trait was conditioned into him and there was no escaping it. A life without any true rest was the sacrifice all shinobi had to make, and he was no different. _Can't rest till you're gone._

Sasuke saw the guards' raised eyebrows, but he could sense they believed the scene in front of them, for what was to be doubted—other than, perhaps, the obvious display of affection that was either exceptionally rare or fully absent from daily life in Kirigakure. Finally, he broke the embrace, although he remained close to his so-called uncle; keeping up appearances was always essential, as he'd learned from countless under-cover missions before, and this was his last, his final covert affair as a nin .

Finding no reason to delay, the two Mist nin ushered them inside the gate and bade them not to cause any trouble. Unable to help himself, Sasuke briefly mused that it should have been more difficult to get inside, and that if he'd been trying to permeate Konoha's border, it would have required more planning and most likely stealth and force, despite Kirigakure's reputation as bloody and brutal within the shinobi culture. Upon entering the village, Sasuke found himself and Habute standing atop a narrow but sturdy path made of concrete and gravel; on either side, what Sasuke assumed was salt water lapped at the edges, not rough but too choppy to be calm, despite the current absence of wind. The sea…such a volatile expanse of water that covered so much of the world, effortlessly found but impossible to tame, to control. Sasuke was fascinated by it. He longed to immerse himself in the cool, dark depths and just let himself go and _sink_, drown like he never had and never would for as long as he lived, for as long as _he_ lived.

* * *

Habute led Sasuke to his home, weaving through the village after the narrow path had given way to legitimate land, although it was nothing like Konoha—he refused to call that village his home, for in so many ways, it had destroyed him, although he'd be lying to himself if he said it had not made him who he was.

Once inside the man's house, Sasuke let out a long breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, and he allowed himself to sag heavily into the seat provided at Habute's table. It was clear he was a fisherman; various nets and hooks and poles lined the walls, and several fish skeletons adorned the mantel to a humble fireplace on the far side of the room. Stairs to his right led up, most likely to a solitary bedroom. Small, but all that was necessary to sustain one man.

"So," Habute said as he lit a fire, making his way back to the kitchen area. His voice was like gravel, low and primeval and rough. "I have helped you, and continue to help you now even though I do not know you, and never will know you; at the very least, you will tell me why you are here while you eat. I see you're quite hungry," he finished, continuing to bustle around the kitchen to collect various spices and several large, previously boned fish.

Sasuke was silent for a moment. Then, with hard eyes, he spoke. "I'm here to…to settle a debt."

Not a lie; in fact, there was more truth (there was that word again, evermore impossible for him to escape, try though he might) to the statement than he'd intended there to be. While some might call it reduction, even to the point of absurdity—well, it was human nature to _simplify_, and so although the word was weighted with those thousands of tangibles and intangibles, it accurately comprised that which was otherwise indescribable with language or even a singular emotion.

Outside, Sasuke heard a sudden wind whistle, and shut his eyes as it rattled the frame of the house. Then there was rain, and through the window he could see that it came down in torrents. How…fitting.

Habute said nothing as he scraped sliced fish into a pot hanging over the fire, and the smells wafting from it made Sasuke lightheaded. He'd mentally prepared himself for further questioning, but the silence drew on as the man busied himself arranging their meal, so Sasuke leaned further back in the chair and closed his eyes, unafraid and unable to stare and stare without really seeing anything. Soon enough, there was a bowl filled to the brim with a mouth-watering fish stew accompanied by a slab of warm bread and some cheese—more than enough to fill the void in his stomach. He waited until Habute sat down across from him before giving himself a large spoonful of the soup, dimly enjoying the heat (_so cold in Kirigakure; easy to see why the blood is shed, for the red is the warmth and they can't get enough_) that spread through him as he helped himself to his first meal in what felt like forever. Best to commemorate the little things, now. He didn't have much time left, for small pleasures or any pleasures at all.

After the two men had sufficiently filled themselves, Habute set down his utensils and fixed his gaze on Sasuke, who finished chewing the last bite of his bread and said nothing but stared back, unreadable as ever.

"A debt."

Sasuke nodded, slowly; he caught a glimpse of himself in the window as the sky had darkened due to thunder-clouds, and saw the same image as always: a young, externally handsome face that carried too much sorrow and hate to hide the ancient exhaustion that followed him no matter how he tried to run, and he'd stopped running long ago (or rather, he ran not from but _towards_, and to him, that made all the difference).

"What kind of debt?"

Simple questions that required intricate answers; Sasuke didn't like it, but he'd be damned if he couldn't respond in the most _simple_ way, reduced to the lowest form until the real meaning was only apparent to him, and maybe to one other because of course, _he_ always knew.

"A debt…to my family. To me."

"For what?"

Sasuke pressed his lips into a line, the smallest glint of anger flashing in his eyes before he hid it, like always, deep within himself but easily accessible for when he needed it most. _Soon, soon, your patience is waning but you don't have to wait much longer…_

"I don't think you need to be privy to such detail, Habute-_kun_." There was an allusion of disrespect in his tone, and Sasuke made no effort to hide it. The man had agreed to help him; Sasuke owed him nothing more than maybe some money, but certainly not _this_.

"And I don't believe you need to address me in such an _insolent_ manner; might I remind you that it is by my doing that you crossed safely into Kirigakure, and it may also be by my doing that you never leave." Habute paused, never breaking eye contact with Sasuke. "However, you are correct in that I have no right nor need to any further specifications as to why you are here."

Sasuke gave a single nod in recognition and respect, for the old man's insinuation had surprised him, just a bit, though he didn't mention that he would never be leaving, anyway. For a while they sat in silence, the older man resting peacefully with closed eyes, Sasuke staring out the window, lost in thoughts that swirled and spiraled and collided like the waves outside.

_I hate Kirigakure._

Involuntarily, Sasuke's fist clenched on the table; his fingernails were far too short to provide any pain, but he felt the blunt force digging into his palm and reveled in it, for he had always loved the corporeal and scorned the ethereal, and at least the sensation was wholly present, even if he himself was not.

_Why _here_?_

It wasn't truly a question, only rhetorical in the sense that, of course, he knew the answer. It could have been due to familiarity—the mind and body seek shelter in the known, and if _he_ was human, then he could be no different, and after all, he knew the wretched shark-man had once resided here. It could have been due to distance, and _lack_ of familiarity—Kirigakure and Konohagakure were on opposite ends of the spectrum, without question, and maybe, like him, his mirror and his other half and ultimately the source of his hatred had wanted to flee. But that was not in the way of the Uchiha. Most likely it was because, more than anything, Sasuke hated the rain.

When he was young the rain had hindered training, and training was the most important thing because then he could be _just like_ his brother Itachi.

Sasuke grit his teeth, grinding them without meaning to as he stared unseeing at the rain-washed window. It never halted.

When he was older the rain had washed away the pools of blood that seeped out from under the bodies of the proud Uchiha clan, _as if it could all be forgotten_.

Sasuke gripped the table, hard, his breathing as irregular as his past.

When he was old—for he was old, in every sense of the word except the physical—the rain froze him as he hunted the only one who had ever managed to get away, slowed him down _as though he could be stopped_.

The rain had no place with Uchiha Sasuke.

A creak, then the sound of crunching wood as Sasuke's fingers breached the surface of the table and splintered the area into oblivion, tiny fragments embedding themselves into his fingers. He didn't wince, but instead gave a look of apology to Habute, who wore his surprise—_and; was that regret? or something more terrible, like pity_—blatantly on his face.

"I'll—I'll pay to have that fixed," Sasuke said quietly, stumbling over the words. It was so rare that he lost control of his body (except it had been happening so much that day) that he didn't know what to think, and flat out refused to _feel_.

"No, no matter," said Habute after a long pause, like he'd just come out of some waking reverie. "I can fix it myself."

"Let me at least pay you for…for your help. It's time for me to leave anyway. I've stayed far too long." His voice remained quiet, but it had lost the sincerity that had coloured it just a moment before. How quickly he reverted to his true nature; it more than allowed him to stand by his belief that no man could ever change. He might try, and he might consciously alter his actions, but unconscious _reaction_—no one could deny it, nor attempt to defy it.

The old fisherman from Kirigakure called Nigato Habute began to protest, but Sasuke shoved a wad of bills into the man's hand and walked out the door into the rain, shutting it behind him with a sense of futile finality.

* * *

Rain. So much of it that it was worse for his vision than the damned mist had been that morning. Tiny pellets of icy water drenched his cheeks and dark hair so that it was plastered to his forehead, and his fitted black shinobi-wear was of no help to shield his body from the overwhelming _wetness_. Vaguely he noticed that his genjutsu had faded; he wondered when, then recalled he had terminated it once he was inside the man's house. He gave a single reflexive shiver, then started to make his way through the clustered buildings of Kirigakure that was surrounded by endless sea and eternal emptiness.

_I know where to find you._

He couldn't hear his own steps on the soaked concrete, for the rain created a constant hiss in his ninja-trained ears and the occasional thunder deafened him, though numbly he realized it was better than silence. At least he could listen to the external noise, now, instead of the internal. He walked blindly, without a sense of direction, yet he knew exactly where he was headed (_and to whom_). Once more, he felt for the kunai, that abject fatal weapon that sat in his pocket like dead weight, like the chains that bound him to this life and only this life. They dragged him in some ways and he pulled them in others, and were either way a part of him, an extension that had grown heavier as the years passed.

Of course, he carried a second weapon, possibly the deadlier of the two (_depending on the victim, and isn't it all relative?_) but one that he used ever sparingly, for he knew the consequences too well (_I might be blind but you're sightless, and there's a difference because at least I can see my own two feet march toward you_). Sharingan eyes; ironic that a weapon so skilled at genjutsu, illusion, would in turn cause the user to adopt illusion once the world went dark and there were only four meager senses left. Sasuke had stolen the Mangekyou from Madara years before but at least he'd done so with knowledge, whereas…

Itachi.

But he would not let his thoughts travel directly there, not yet. Instead he numbed himself entirely as he watched the buildings pass him by…or was it he passing them by? Did it make a difference? Maybe. He knew to take even the smallest variations into account and to latch onto them so they could not leave his awareness. As he walked, the rain lessened slightly, and he was able to see into the small, slanted houses. Some showed only an empty room, void of human life. Others exalted it; there were children, and parents, and a sense of calm that the walls barred him from, had always barred him from. Once, he even saw two brothers, one slightly older, playing in tandem on the floor of a sitting room. Cynically, he wondered if they would grow up close, or increasingly apart until the only emotions left to fill the distance were hate and resentment. They tended to come as a pair.

But he passed that house, too, and it blended in with the rest when he looked back until he couldn't tell it apart. This was what a blank slate looked like to him, an outsider, and in some ways, he was loathe to leave it behind. For a moment, he imagined a life in which he turned around and made his way back to the house of Nigato Habute, the old fisherman who lived in Kirigakure where it always rained. He would learn to fish, and to whittle, perhaps, and never again would he need to know the seals for this genjutsu or that. Never again would he need to train, or fight, or even carry a kunai in his pocket. But it was painfully futile to envision such a life, because his reality was that of a shinobi, and more specifically, that of Uchiha Sasuke, and he could not escape it, no matter what fantasy his mind supplied.

The houses started to fade but he barely noticed; he did not even notice his own movements until he was far past the condensed, civilian portion of the village and was amongst rocks and cliffs all around him that climbed taller and taller as he walked on.

A dark figure, like a pinprick, a blur in the image, stood in the distance, and he was too far away to see anything definitively but it could be no one else. Still his legs carried him, on, and on.

_Itachi_.

Instead of curling in anger, Sasuke's lips fell open just slightly, enough to let a tired sigh escape as he at last halted his steps, facing _him_. Uchiha Itachi stood not fifty feet away, with the massive cliff towering over the both of them in the background and still the rain came down, down. He'd fully left the houses of the cold wet bloody empty Kirigakure far behind him and he did not turn around, for if Sasuke had ever learned anything of worth, it was to never look back, and despite the fact that he carried his past like an emblem on his shoulder, at least he was forever moving forward, toward his only purpose, toward this moment.

Both sets of eyes remained onyx as Sasuke steadily walked to stand before his brother, now less than ten feet of distance between the two Uchihas that shared everything and nothing all at once. For the first time since he was a child, Sasuke could hear his heart pound in rhythm with his motion, then his thoughts, and he sensed the fear but focused instead on the calm, for he'd long since been a master of fear and it would not swallow him now. His rain-soaked hair slid into his eyes and he pushed it away. Nothing would mar this final confrontation. As he stood motionless—and he was sure that even time must have stopped, for to be frozen in such a way was too foreign to be a part of his reality—he came to the realization that he felt none of the anger he had stored away for so many years, but he had the sense that when it was time, it would come. For now…

It was intrinsically difficult to examine his mind, and the other _thing_ that resided within him that happened to be his heart, when it had been so long that he'd chanced a look into either. Now that he did, all he could see were whirlpools within the violent jagged waves of the endless sea in his own eternal emptiness. In front of him stood a man and a brother and an enemy and… There were too many labels that could never be applied to Uchiha Itachi because first and foremost and _only_, Itachi was his double, his mirror, the other side of him that existed only in the figure he now faced, and in a way, it was like coming home—not home in the sense of Konoha, or any tangible structure, but home as a _feeling_. This, too, was altogether distant and maybe unfamiliar but not unpleasant and _he didn't have much time left…_

For reasons he couldn't explain, when Itachi reached out an empty hand, Sasuke stood still and let it happen, let go like a shinobi never should and closed his black and hateful and Sharingan eyes as Itachi's numb fingers glided over his face, his features, and for a moment it struck Sasuke that his brother could not see. He knew not to take it much into account, for if anyone was deserving of his respect (even if it came hand in hand with loathing and something else Sasuke didn't care to identify) is was Itachi, and he was deadly as ever, standing there with his hand on Sasuke's face and his blank eyes and the expression that said everything, that said too much. But to be truly, literally _blind_…

_And still the rain came down, down._

"The higher the tide, the quicker to drown," Itachi said as he let his hand fall back to his side, his voice smooth and quiet and like velvet, just as Sasuke had always remembered it to be, and he could not help the miserable, fleeting smile that crossed his lips.

As if Itachi could see, he gave a short, soft laugh and shook his head. "Don't look back, Sasuke."

_Ha_. "I never do," he lied.

Naturally Itachi would play along; it had all come down to this moment, and they both knew it, and neither one would back away, flee. Uchihas did not flee. "Then what are you doing _here_, Sasuke, in the rain you so hate, in front of the brother you also…hate?" His voice, like honey but richer and altogether darker, drifted through Sasuke, rendering him too visible to the man who could not see but really, this was how it had always been, and at least now he had the clearer vision. When Sasuke did not answer, Itachi continued. "It seems to me, _Sasuke_, that everything leading up to this very second would have required your head to be turned to the past while your feet moved of their own accord."

For minutes that lasted an eternity, the only sound was of the steady rainfall, that had somehow become heavier again, louder, shielding them from—from what? Each other? Not even the rain could stop this.

"You're right." Sasuke had found his own voice, and though it was just as quiet as Itachi's, it was just a little stronger, enough to make a difference even within his own mind. "And I blame you. I blame you for my inability to tear my goddamn eyes away from the past long enough to see something, _anything_ other than your face."

Then, finally, the anger came like the torrents of rain that poured from above except it rose up within him until it spewed from his mouth. Sasuke felt it in his veins and his tensed muscles and his very soul, the thing he'd forgotten he had until that moment, and he found that he was shaking from the intensity of the rage.

"And you," he said, and his voice shook too, "you knew that would happen. Before you'd killed a single one of our abhorrent clan, you knew that with the first life you took, you were condemning me to a life where I was _consumed_ by my loathing for you and my loathing for the life I was brought into, because of course I could not abandon my duty to _avenge_." Sasuke laughed, short and bitter. "It was easy to hate you. All my life prior to that night, I'd looked up to you, wanted to be you, but also envied you, before I even knew what jealousy was. So of course, of _course_, after that night, I had to be better. I had to," Sasuke laughed, but it sounded more like a sob even though there were no tears, for he'd also been trained not to cry. The rain would not break him anymore. "But if nothing else, don't, _don't_ pity me. You made me."

He knew Itachi would not stop him when he closed the distance between the two of them and tore his brother's shirt down the middle with the kunai that had somehow found its way into Sasuke's ready hand. Never breaking his eyes from his brother's face, he slowly, determinedly carved the Uchiha clan symbol into the pale skin, feeling the hot blood drip over his fingers but refusing to look away from the stoic expression that seemed all too contrived on Itachi's features. "Come on, Itachi," Sasuke hissed as he finished, jumping just a little as his brother gripped his arm, tightly, holding him there as he stepped forward just once, so there was not more than an inch of air amidst them. "Show me _something_." He heard the begging in his own voice but did not care, for he had the kunai pressed to his brother's chest and that was all that mattered.

Itachi closed his eyes, and then, too abruptly, Sasuke could see everything; saw the tired lines that mirrored his own, and the weary face and the sorrow and the _apology_ and he did not want to see anymore for fear of what he might find. _One and the same, like always._ The anger was not gone (never gone) but understanding and acceptance now overpowered it. Sasuke pressed his lips to Itachi's forehead as he drove the kunai deep into Itachi's skin, not over his heart but across his chest so that he'd have just a little more time, _didn't have much time left_. He was only a little bit surprised when Itachi's lips curved into a genuine smile.

When he looked down, the blood covered Itachi's bare torso, thinned because it had mixed with that relentless rain that now seemed like relief in contrast to its previous menace. Itachi's hand around his arm tightened as he sank to his knees, and Sasuke descended with him, denying the thoughts that threatened to surface when Itachi's forehead rested against his own.

"Let me—" Itachi choked on the blood that had begun to pool in his mouth and dribble from his lips, and he spat once. "I want to see you. _Sasuke_. Just once. With, with the Mangekyou. I saved the last bit of sight. For you." More blood landed on the stone ground as he coughed, only to be washed away by the rain, like the rest of the Uchiha blood, and Itachi opened his forever black and red eyes.

_Should have known_, Sasuke thought wryly, without resentment as he felt a kunai at his throat, and of course, he couldn't move.

"I forgive you," Sasuke whispered through the genjutsu at Itachi, and he thought he saw something flicker in the dead, bloody eyes in front of him, but wasn't this just illusion? And yet…

"I know," Itachi said with a sad, acquiescent smile that Sasuke had seen only once before on a night long ago.

There was no regret as the kunai, gripped tightly in Itachi's hand, dropped to Sasuke's heart. Sasuke knew it was with the last of Itachi's strength when he felt the cold sharp metal tip press slowly through his shirt, skin, heart. Their final, shared thought—_better to die as one_—hung in the air before it fell with their bodies and he could feel the last bit of sand trickle through the center of his, _their_ hourglass, and then—black.

And still the rain came down, down as the Uchiha blood was washed away one last time.


End file.
